trends in the mobile market student innovations
TRANSCRIPT
Trends in the Mobile Market
+
Student Innovations
By
James Fowe
MIT’s AITI
@Univ. Of Lagos
July 2012
Student Innovations!
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What we want to see after this talk is a set of highly skilled and motivated Nigerian students daring to produce world-class technology innovations and business startups that solves local problems with global relevance, thereby improving our own lives and accelerating Africa’s prosperity.
Technology Evolution
My Presentation Abstract @ Univ of Illinois
This presentation gives an African perspective to the evolution and usage of mobile and internet
services.
It is evident the way communication and computing technology evolved over the last 4 decades and
how it overwhelmingly changed our lives. While the rest of the world caught-on with this changes and
utilized these technologies to improve livelihood, Africa was largely behind in the 70s, 80s and 90s not
until after year 2000 when there was the upsurge of the GSM mobile telecoms in African countries. The
common saying in Africa is that the continent is 200yrs behind the developed countries, but a sudden
ray of hope emerged when we discovered the potential of mobile phones.
Given the 20% growth rate of the number of mobile phone subscriptions in Africa for the past 5yrs and
with over 650million mobile phone subscribers on the continent, definitely there is hope for Africa. The
digital dots created by this mobile devices covering both the urban and rural areas in Africa is surely
creating a new type of computing and a connected people such that we can now describe mobile
phones as Africa's digital backbone!
This has created a new way of thinking and problem solving; Kenya is now very big on mobile payment
systems (M-PESA), such that a villager fetches (buy) water just by sending an SMS. Cars can be parked
in Ghana through the use of a mobile application that automatically deducts payment from the phone
credit and gives a parking lot number. In Nigeria, Farmers can get market prices of 24 crops in over 100
local markets across the country using Nokia Life Tools. They also get weather information and daily
tips on how to improve their farms. In Ghana mPedigree is used to validate the authenticity of drugs
bought in local pharmacy stores, it is being used to checkmate the influx of fake drugs smuggled into
the country. South Africa is already using mobile phones as sensors for Intelligent Transportation
Systems to help congestion avoidance and also in forecasting of environmental changes like Droughts
so as to proactively provide necessary help to people and cattle's in order to prevent epidemic.
Africa’s Telephone Penetration in 1990
The Dawn of a New Era
The Dawn of a New Era
With over 620 million mobile connections
as of September 2011, Africa has
overtaken Latin America to become the
second largest mobile market in the world,
after Asia. Over the past 10 years, the
number of mobile connections in Africa has
grown an average of 30% per year and is
forecast to reach 735 million by the end of
2012
This is the Mobile Internet Era
Is Research and advancement of Mobile
Internet only for developed countries ???
We need a paradigm shift in our thinking …
What we need in Nigeria is:
Local Innovations with Global Relevance
Year 2011 to 2012
An Upsurge of Tech Startups & Events Mobile Web West Africa
Jobberman Funding
Mobile Monday Nigeria (LBS, Pitch-Monday, Mobile Money, Get Techie, etc)
Inside CC Hub: Mobile Startups Show cased at Developer Parapo #DevParapo. CCHub got 40m Naira funding.
2 Nokia Developer Training and Nokia’s EPROM @ OAU
Nigerian Startup NollywoodLove got $3Million funding in 2011. Now Iroko partners they got $8Million funding in 2012
Nokia Developer Competition with $5,000 Nigerian price to be won and 50,000 pounds global price.
Android Competition, Samsung Dev competition
G-Nigeria, Google Hackatron, Google @UNN, etc
Startups Lagos, Garage48, Tech-Open Day, Bar-Camp, Social Innov Camp
MTN Mobile Apps platform
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Why MoMo Nigeria ?
Why MoMo Nigeria ?
12 MoMo Nigeria Event – Meet the Players
Mobile Monday Nigeria …
Building Nigeria’s
Mobile / Internet Eco-System
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http://momonigeria.org/
Email=>[email protected]
Twitter => @momonigeria
Career-Paths to be a Mobile/Internet Guru
User Experience(UX) Designer
Data/Database Expert …a big-fat sit in the clouds
Mobile Application Development
Software Developer/Programmer
Software Engineer
Research Scientist
Solution’s Architect / TCP/IP Networks & Interfaces
Product Manager
Business Development
Core Telecoms Eng Skills e.g Transmission, Billing Systems, 3G/GPRS, SMSC, Ericsson/Alcatel Platforms, etc
Server Operating Systems Admin e.g Windows & Unix 14
Develop Yourself Knowledge has left the 4 walls of University Class-rooms
Yes. It’s a global competition, the only way out is to be a global player! Learn skills up to a world class competence.
Get Technical!
Programming (Server-side & Client-side), TCP/IP & Linux
Your job can be out-sourced to another country, Yes! and it can also be out-sourced to you from abroad!
The only way to stand-out in a global competition is to be extra-ordinary. That extra comes from Terrific hard-work + Talent & creativity.
Take a Pre-requisite Course Titled: How To Be Self-Taught
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Student Opportunity!
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Tech Business Model for Students = Innovation!
Start Innovating … Innovators win competitions!
What I see is … within 5yrs from now..,
student entrepreneurs in Nigeria can employ
graduates!
Paradigm Shift to be Innovative Students
Ask Questions, Create Questions!
Redefine… What School and Why School ?
Stop the mentality of - Wait for the next instruction
Don’t go for Grades … Go for Knowledge!
Aim to be a world-class competent student like ..Caltech, MIT & CMU
Think about Local Problems and Aggressively find Solutions
Take ALL your courses like a tech research opportunity or a knowledge for business
Take your final-year project like a business start-up. Don’t settle for less! Even aim to do a publication, except your passion/career direction is not in your course of education.
Socialize, Collaborate, Train, Setup-events, Innovate & Make Noise!
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Few Examples of Student Innovations
Jobberman.com
Facebook.com
Yahoo.com
Google.com
desmos.com
Mukoshy.com
NairaLand.com
Areas of Possible (Realistic) Mobile/Internet Technology
& Business Innovations in Nigeria – 2011 - 2020
Text Processing / Data Mining
Mobile Payment / Mobile Money
Outsourcing and Crowd Sourcing
Platforms
Internet/Intranet network access,
speed and security
Mobile Wireless (Bluetooth, NFC,
Wifi, etc)
Quality Educational Services
Tablets/Pads & Mobile Apps
SMS to Web-applications
Voice to Web-Applications
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LBS, Mobility & Navigation (in&out-door)
Social/Human Networks, Ads Services &
Social Media
Infrastructure for Cloud Platforms (IaaS,
PaaS)
Computer Vision
Entertainment & Non Entertainment
Games
Search (not web)
Football (…build an intelligent & intuitive
service. Consider Game Theory )
Anything Video – Broadcast, Uni-cast,
Multi-cast, Self-cast, Offline-cast
Here is the truth:
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Its good to be a Developer,
but right now we need more
Software Engineers
and
Research Scientists
in Nigeria
What is Next – Mobile Cloud Services
What is Next –
Mobile Grid Computing & Crowd Sourcing
Voice Clouds
Vision 2020
A future where Africa has exploited the potentials of the new hope in mobile computing,
by producing ingenious solutions to local problems, thereby meeting key needs
of a low-income Family because they have a mobile phone!
Let’s settle-down & Innovate!
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Don’t run-to Paradise … Build It!
Tech Geeks, innovating and
changing the world!
26 http://www.utsa.edu/careercenter/images/riasec/riasec.png
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Enough talk...
Lets Get to work!…
twitterID = @Fowe
Thank You
Any Questions ?
References http://researchspace.csir.co.za/dspace/bitstream/10204/4767/1/Nkosi_2010.pdf
http://pubs.cs.uct.ac.za/archive/00000672/01/SAICST_2010_P-390-Masinde-49-1.pdf
http://mpedigree.net/mpedigree/index.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-H
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/communication/telpl.html
http://eclipsesource.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/crowdsourcing.jpg